


Fool Me Twice

by Yenneffer



Series: Shame on you, shame on me... [2]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Asgard, Brothers, Dreams, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Drama, Gen, Loki does bonding like no one else, Mourning, Past Tense, Present Tense, Regret, Shapeshifting, Sibling Rivalry, Spellcraft gone wrong, Third Chances, Wasted Second Chances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:20:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4847276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yenneffer/pseuds/Yenneffer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Second Coming. </p><p>Or, the road paved by Loki for the God of Thunder is covered in weeds. Thor is not a patient gardener. Thor also has a hammer that will one day crush his lying, deceitful, recently-ressurrected, soon-to-be-dead, traitor brother's head.<br/>Loki will probably be too busy laughing to notice the coming blow.<br/>Such is fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool Me Twice

Life on Midgard – he supposed he should learn to refer to it as Earth, now (only that would be another tiny tie to his home cut) – was both more precious and simpler.

It was not a quest. It was no everyday monster-slaying. No politics of the court (oh, Thor knew there were enough politics going on on Midgard, they simply did not concern him personally as much) or great treasure-hunting. Parties were had, yet they were no days-long revelries that had swum through Asgard uncountable times.

At this precise moment, Thor was weeding.

It was a simple task that required no concentration whatsoever, or so he had thought until (Lady) Darcy rushed out of the house, waving her arms erratically and, upon reaching Thor’s kneeling figure, pushing on his sun-warmed T-shirt to stop his effort.

“No, no, not that, leave the poppies alone!”

Confused, he blinked, and looked down at his hand. His fingers were curled around a stalk of a bright red flower, its delicate petals crushed above his fist. He slowly uncurled his fist, let the already-torn flower crumple to the ground and looked sheepishly up at Darcy. He had been lost in thought and got carried away by the mindless work, something he’d thought he needed. Yet apparently Darcy was quite protective of her suitor’s– no, boyfriend’s garden.

Darcy rolled her eyes, temporarily towering over the giant figure. “Never mind, thunder-boy. I don’t think weeding’s really your thing, yeah?”

She jokingly offered Thor her hand to hoist him up. He accepted.

Darcy heaved. “Come on, you, help the girl out here. I thought you lot were s’posed to be all chivalrous-like and stuff. Don’t let a girl do all your work for ya. Up, up, muscle!” She encouraged with a laugh.

Later, after they had all shared dinner prepared by Ian (the one able cook they had in their odd group of miscreants) and Jane (the somewhat hindering helper) and after Darcy and Thor tidied up, Jane’s best friend and no-longer-only assistant nagged the astrophysicist to help her in educating the Thunder God in “proper flower conduct”.

“Jane, for all we know, they consider roses weeds up there in the land of rainbows and pixie dust! What if he needs to grovel at your feet and screws it up ‘cause of some death-flowers? This calls for cultural intervention. He popped a poor poppy flower out of the ground when it came his turn on our weeding rota!”

“Darcy, we don’t have a weeding rota,” Jane interjected, in vain attempting to stop the train-wreck that was Darcy with an idea. Behind her friend’s back she saw the men of the house (all two of them) shake their heads in unison. Best to pick her battles and all that.

“All right, you win! But not today,” she said, unbelieving. Sometimes it seemed to her that she had no say in her life anymore. It was weird that, with having a literal god (one with a temper to boot, too) as a hopefully-but-let’s-not-jinx-that life-partner, all the power rested in her assistant’s hands.

The next day Jane took Thor out for a walk combined with a shopping expedition. July had come and nearly gone, the humid August approaching fast on its heels, and with it a tremendous occasion – not Jane’s words, but it would soon be clear whose – that was Darcy’s birthday.

Jane walked hand in hand with Thor, window-shopping for an idea for a gift. She saw scarves, bright and curving along the mannequins’ necks, denim jackets, perfumes vying for customer’s attention with their sensuous shapes and colouring, and a myriad of other trivial things that seemed indispensable, yet after her short trek over Svartalfheim she could look only bleakly on them. The shock was setting into her life, wanting to stay, but she would be damned if she let it shadow her happiness. She squeezed Thor’s hand as a reminder to herself of the good that came out of it. Earlier, it had been pure fascination, the scientist and a little girl who’d watched the stars from her bedroom window, telling herself stories about them, in her that had latched onto Thor as if he were a bridge into another world and life – a way into her dreamland. And she had genuinely admired his determination and goodness, generally liked spending time with him, what little they’d had. But she had known him for a couple of days, and that was it; he’d been a crush, like a little girl’s Prince Charming, one she grew out of one day. Now she was falling in love with him, his everyday quirks, little snores and adorable confusion and a spine of steel (he was a stubborn mule, that one) as a woman would fall in love with her boyfriend – and fall into a good life with him.

She hoped he was here to stay, this time. She had to remember to ask Darcy to somehow block any SHIELD numbers; she didn’t trust those bastards, never had, never would, no matter what great equipment they offered her. She reminded herself they were fickle and could take it away, with benefits, any time they wanted. Thor was too good for them; and he would agree to help, no matter what they asked of him, and they would use him and use him up. He was hers now; he’d chosen her, over his realm and his crown and his friends. The least she could do was protect him from her own planet and its often greedy claws. He had lost enough; no more. (You are a hypocrite, Jane Foster, a sibilant voice that sounds like a smug-smirking Asgardian and spears her like a venomous glare. He will lose you too, soon, and there is nothing you can do to protect him from yourself. You will hurt him, because it is in your nature. Just like it is in mine. Birds of a feather, mortal.)

She shuddered, the warm sun and warmer hand in her own doing nothing for the chill crawling down her spine.

“What sorrow plagues you?” Thor didn’t look at Jane when he spoke, the deep rumble of his voice hushed, distant, and she was gripped by an unnamed fear; she will not get to keep him.

He was not hers to keep, a force of the universe itself, a man of the stars, like his hammer. She was a pit-stop on his path.

“You are usually not this solemn and troubled,” he continued. “Is it me?”

“No,” she lied, easily. “I don’t know what to do. Oh, it has nothing to do with you, Thor,” she laughed at him, and carried on babbling, “your Einstein-Rosen Bridge is repaired and... well, before you came back for the first time, I’d been trying to repair it, but now that I have been to the Elves’ world I wonder if it is such a good idea... you know, opening the wormholes? Once it was just an idea, but now... Now Thor, there are consequences and I have to see them.”

“Jane...”

“Think, Thor. If I hadn’t found the Aether, neither your mother nor brother would have died. I was so thrilled about the distorted gravitational field, but what does it matter when I’ve seen people – your family – die around me?” She was getting hysterical and frantic, but they hadn’t talked about that elephant in the room and she had to know... she was curious.

He thought her words carefully through. “You have told me yourself that there is only moving forward.”

“How wise of me,” she snorted, amused.

“Verily,” he answered drily. “But essentially it is true. You know that if you hadn’t found the Aether, someone else would have. I do not blame you for what transpired. And,” he concluded with a twinkling eyes, “I wish to visit that establishment.” Thor pointed his free hand to a non-descript shop across the busy London street.

Jane followed his hand with her gaze and jumped slightly when a loud horn blared nearby.

It was a neat little bookshop, tucked away in a street corner beside a toy shop, a precarious pile of books stacked on the window exhibit, barely visible through the little windowpanes, with the walls painted bright red with darker accents.  

There was a bunch of ringing bells hung like tinkling grapes over the door inside the cramped place of books, Thor noted as he hunched his shoulders down to avoid walking straight into the swaying mass of poorly gilded metal. He reached his hand up to still the cheerful sound, recalling how Loki used to scold him for any noise he caused in the library. His smile turned rueful at the remembered high pitch of Loki’s annoyed voice. His brother had always bemoaned the fact that his voice did that in his rage; another perceived difference between Odin, Thor and himself.

He had never told his brother that he was glad of that fact; he knew people feared his own temper, and the fury of the King of Asgard was staggering and felt throughout the whole palace, with no niche remaining unscathed. Loki’s temper was ridiculous and funny and – dare he say it? – endearing. It never failed to drag a smile onto Thor’s face, no matter how grim his mood had been prior to his confrontation with his brother.

The library on Asgard – and Loki’s chambers, too, to an extent, although with time it had mostly been Thor’s memory that found the lingering smell of paper under some of his brother’s more noxious experiments – were filled with odour of dusty pages and tomes lying undisturbed on their shelves for centuries. This diminutive place was stacked with books to its utter storing capacity, as unlike to grand halls of bookshelves back home as was humanly (hah!) possible. Books here felt and looked new and the dissonance between then/now and there/here ringed with truth and freshness in his mind. He could start fresh, even if for a while.

He saw Jane perusing a shelf in the back, her hair swaying as she tried to reach up for a book that was out of her short reach. He made to move towards her and offer his aid, but she was a self-efficient woman and managed to grasp what she wanted, standing on tip-toes in her funny shoes.

He dragged a thumb over a row of colourful spines, amusing himself by trying to guess their content from the befuddling titles.

Some of the books he paged through told stories of adventure; this he did not understand. This did not bring knowledge, as books were known to do, and what thrill was an adventure not your own, or your own dear friends? These were tales of non-existent peoples (fiction, Jane had called it, and the word settled down with weirdness on his tongue, leaving bitter traces on his palate).

Loki’s books used to be different from those.

Thor’s brother had relished in going on adventures, this he remembered well. Whether it was to see new wonders, experience new, always new, insatiable curiosity urged him, things. Or to be there when Thor, the Warriors Three or Sif were out of their depths (which was always, brother-dear, a voice snarks at the edge of his thoughts) and save them from themselves at the very last second, or to have them owe him.

Or to be away from the unfriendly eyes at the palace. Loki had always been acutely aware of the stares, unlike his protective failure of a brother who hadn’t known (but he did care, Thor hoped Loki had at least known that much).

Oh, but he had loved tales. Not the exaggerated ones that spilled from Thor’s – or their companions’ – tongues. Not subtle enough, or deep enough, he supposed. But sometimes, when Thor had remembered to look closely at his brother, and when the story was riveting, oh then he would see his brother alive and in love.

He had to wonder now whether Loki would have liked those Midgardian stories. Maybe he hadn’t read such books because there were none good enough. Maybe that would’ve been a piece of Midgard – _Earth_ – that Loki could have come to appreciate. The ingenuity of humans, their imagination. Maybe Loki had needed a different approach than Thor.

And maybe – just a thought here, mind you, but a very angry one – Thor should have thought of it before, when there had still been time, when he had been given a second chance with his brother. Before his (second) death, Loki had been shut in a cell. And Thor’s pride – strange, how people thought he had changed when in truth he was the same as ever, brash, arrogant, unthinking of the consequences, unwilling to look past wrongs inflicted on him – had prevented him from reaching out a hand. Maybe he should have brought some of those books in  good faith, to at least give him solace from a mad mind, to while away the days of boredom and inactivity. Yes, Loki would have called him a fool. But Thor should have been able to stomach that. To look past his own pride.

And maybe later Loki would have picked the books up, and remembered that he hadn’t been forgotten.

Instead Thor had offered him pretty words of brotherhood and then promptly abandoned him when the situation turned rough. Brothers always and forever, unless, and, but. His promises and declarations had been heavily conditioned, and he had wilfully wasted his second chance with Loki.

Something told him there wouldn’t be a third. Unless they met at a table in Valhalla. Loki would probably throw a cup of wine at his face. He had always liked dramatic gestures.

He didn’t choose any of the books to buy. What would be the point? He preferred living the adventures, didn’t have the mind to appreciate the subtle intricacies of professional story-telling, and his brother was dead. A tad too late to buy him gifts now.

He rejoined Jane to look over her shoulder at the volume she was perusing.     

“What are those ‘zombies’?” He questioned her, frowning at the book in her hands.

“Undead humans, bent on getting breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper at their neighbour’s place...” Jane replied, distracted. “Darcy will be thrilled.”

“Armies of the undead? I have fought with such, once,” he answered her, to which she turned, looking perplexed. He shrugged. “A formidable foe, if only for their tendency to rise no matter how hard you hit them. The skirmish lasted for seven days and seven nights, and by the end of it I and my companions were getting weary when Loki decided he had had enough and threw us off a cliff.”

She blinked at him, hard.

“He threw you off a cliff?”

“Well, with a cliff, more like. As I recall it, half of the top rocks fell with us into the deep...”

God help me (that seems wrong to say, now). He sounds fond, Jane thought dizzily. I am dating a psychopath.

“Darcy will be thrilled,” she muttered.

She bought the book, curiously titled _Pride and Prejudice and Zombies_. At least her friend wouldn’t bitch at her for making her read science books. Even for what stood for science in her new life – and that had been some major re-definition, everything she used to know gone, everything that had been obvious and clear now wrong and muddy – 19 th century zombies from the elite class dining and romancing each other was as far away as you could get from the science world and still occupy the same dimension as the rest of humanity.

And there wouldn’t even be Colin Firth playing the main role.

Her TV and she had become really fast friends when she’d been moping over Thor, she acknowledged. Now she might make him watch things with her, bask in his confused questions and explain things to him (as he had explained them to her), and re-discover everything anew through him.

Suddenly she felt giddy, and happy. She had survived. Everything, she’d survived everything.

She wondered how he would like the _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ , with the very mock-knights and -horses. British humour was so specific that it just might suit a man from a different world.

And if not, they would just be confused together and laugh at each other’s confusion and lack of understanding. Thor would surely appreciate not being the only one out of his depth for once (even though she adored Monty Python, she did. Not always and not everything, but most of the time).

On impulse she turned around and grabbed a copy of _A Game of Thrones_ , figured she could never go wrong with dragons, knights, blood and family strife with a man who spoke fondly of fighting non-stop for seven days and mourned a brother who had once thrown him off a cliff (probably saving all their lives, Jane was fair enough to admit). And if he was not fighting at the moment, he might enjoy an epic story that seemed to come from a world not that different from his own.

And she enjoyed getting people gifts. Especially if said people were her sort-of-probably boyfriends who had just lost 2/3rds of their family and could use a distraction.

All will be well, she told herself, trying to be convincing. All will be well.

_Your clock is ticking, always-mortal. Betrayer._

 

Verily I say unto you: beware of the Trickster-god Loki, for he is a betrayer in nature. Beloved to none, the Liesmith Loki, it is said, seized by the gripping jealousy of his kinsman’s glory and good name, bewitched Thor so that the mad frenzy took him. And the Thunderer spent a fortnight crawling on the ground like a lowly beast, while evil Loki scurried under the shroud of shadow in fear of the gods’ retribution.

Nay, respected friends, hear my words and listen; it happened thus...

... that on a rainy, sun-less day, in the midst of winter the likes of which Asgard the Ever-Eternal has not seen in hundreds years or since, two young gods in a manner most befitting their station expressed their boredom...

... their station?...

Yes, they were both Princes, you see. Brothers, born to a wise King and a noble Queen.

... they expressed their boredom, the younger most studiously reclining with a book of spellcraft on both sides of him, for he was well-gifted in that art, and the elder practising sword-work with an imaginary opponent.  

“Ahh!” Thor cries out, quickly back-tracking from the wall and falling on his arse. The wall follows after him.

Loki smirks behind his book.

“Loooki!” The blond prince’s voice whines from beneath his opponent’s bulk. The darker brother smiles innocently as Thor grumbles his way from beneath the fallen wall. “Stop this trickery at once, you foul... Trickster!”

Loki rises his eyes at this unimaginative name-calling. “But brother, I was only trying to assist you! Surely the...err mighty Thor,” unable to stop himself, he sniggers, “would not wish to be besmirched by claims that he only fights the opponents that cannot fight him back.”

“That is why you bespelled the wall to hit back with twice my strength?”

“Well, not quite ‘twice your strength’, to be honest, brother. Only twice the strength that you hit the wall with. Surely you see ‘tis reasonable,” Loki cajoles. Seeing Thor’s unyielding look, he offers, “If you wish, I could spell your shield so it would do the same. It’d be your hidden advantage in the field. I’ve been practising the war spellcraft...” He lights up with enthusiasm at this idea, thinking furiously what he could use on what weapons to make them more efficient.

Thor scowls at him.

“I do not need any cowardly tricks to help me win fights!” he roars. “I will leave the childish games to you, brother, you should not get involved in real warriors’ affairs, they suit you ill!” With that, he stomps over to another wall and throws his fist at it with all his might. Within a blink of an eye he’s thrown back across the room.

“You uncouth lout!” yells Loki. “Stop ruining my rooms!”

Unable to stomach Thor’s ways, he huffily stalks out, one of his prized books held loosely under his arm.

“Ungrateful cur,” he mutters, incensed. As he walks down the corridor, seething, he realises that Thor has just banished him from his own chambers. And then an idea takes root.

(Much later Loki will admit that he might not have thought this through at all. Or not. Either way no one asked him that.)

 

They went out drinking.

Jane had wanted to spend the evening on compiling her notes – despite having not one but two interns, the bulk of her ideas were scattered all over and she found herself looking for what she needed most of the time. It’s annoying when you forget what you wanted to do with this one piece when you finally manage to locate it. So, organisation night. Followed by some intense cuddling. (She wasn’t joking. Thor had no other setting, as Darcy once astutely remarked.)

Instead they hit the bars. Thor, Ian and Darcy outvoted Jane three to one. Darcy then frog-marched her to the backseat of her own car – why was Ian sitting back with her now? – while she herself sat shotgun. Which left...

“Remember, ignition key first, the pedals come later...” Darcy instructed their driver.   

 

“This is a fine drink. Perhaps lacking in strength, but a flavour is outstanding,” Thor claimed as he and Ian poured themselves more scotch. Their designated driver is drinking scotch, Jane thought with horror. _Thor_ was their designated driver, and she had a sudden urge to facepalm into her own drink.

“Do we have enough money to call a cab?” she asked Darcy, whose cheeks were hollowed out in effort as she was doing her best to steal all the air through her straw, probably in hope that she would find some forgotten droplets of alcohol by chance.

“Are you kidding? Thor’s driving.” When she saw Jane’s scrunched face, she added: “Look, what policeman would dare to try and arrest him? Or take his license away? I mean, he doesn’t even _have_ a license!”  

“No, but I have. They’d take it by proxy. Besides, what is it with you teaching him? You don’t have one as well!”

“Ugh, you’re not nearly drunk enough. Guys!”

 

“My brother couldn’t handle his drink either,” Thor stated proudly (and loudly) while he hoisted Ian up by his arms and made as if to throw him over his shoulder. Jane was fascinated by the ultracolour vision of the truly drunk – she didn’t think she had ever seen green this viridescent. Unless you counted the Bifrost...

“I think he’d rather walk,” she said, giggling to herself. Darcy wrapped her arms around her boyfriend/intern (wasn’t that nepotism or something in that vein?) and they headed out.

“Where to now?”

“Let’s walk and find out!”

And so they walked, and found out. In another bar Darcy started talking about the weirdest things that had happened to them. Apart from meeting Thor in a sandstorm and tasering the god of Thunder himself, she had bought a bus ticket while drunk, woke up in Arizona, in the middle of nowhere with some new friends. One of them invited the whole “gang” to sneak into an abandoned and supposedly haunted house and sleep there. Ian told a story of how his best friend had dressed up as a girl for a party and then hit on him. Ian said no because he was been worried about this friend who was supposed to come to this party and decided to go look for him. Jane’s equipment had once blown up in her face while she was trying to chat up a guy.

“Loki once turned me into a dog,” said Thor.

They all drank, conceding his victory.

 

“Thor, come back here!” Loki hisses at the (uncomplimentarily) yellow-hued dog. The dog barks at him and runs away. “Damn.” He gives chase, swearing at how undignified he must look, running in circles after the stupid beast (what else is new?). He grins when he manages to latch on to the longish yellow fur, sharp fingers digging in and holding tight. But as he goes to stop the dog’s momentum, he realises his error: even as a dog, Thor is much stronger than him. He barely feels the pressure of Loki’s attempts to stop him. Instead, he speeds up as he feels the nails at his side, and the stunned Trickster is flung onto the dog’s back. The yell that emits could shake Asgard’s foundations, as Fandral will be all too eager to teasingly point out to the disgruntled sorcerer.

“Stop, you foul, barbaric, insipid goon! Stop. This. Instant,” he grits out with every bounce. He should’ve turned Thor into a turtle. He gamely hangs on, remembering Frigga’s disapproving face when she found out what he’d done... and she said he was lucky Father was away. Which he knew. Father wouldn’t find humour in this. Even Mother didn’t, so he was alone to laugh. Laugh at his own joke.

He laughs now, too, as Thor veers left in the field and abandons his brother in a corny mess. What a joke, he thinks dazedly to himself. And he laughs and laughs, and can’t shut up.

 

Thor dreams of stars. The ones that now envelop Mother, and the ones that once swallowed up Loki like a hungry beast. He couldn’t have jumped, not with Father holding his legs as securely as if a mountain was standing there, an unmovable force. Did he want to, though? Instinctively, yes. Loki was gone a bare second, and he already missed him. He could have changed so much, if he had jumped after him. There wouldn’t be an army. Or Midgard’s dead. Just he and Loki, and back then, when his brother’s wounds were fresh and not yet knotted up into ugly scars, Thor could’ve reached him. They would have been alone, but with Loki’s mind and Thor’s strength, they could’ve handled much. Just as they always did. They would have come home, they would, together, and stronger in bond after having to trust one another again. Having to rely... Would he have? Relied on Loki, after he had betrayed him. Or would he have blamed him, for forcing him to jump after him? Resented Loki, for taking away everything but himself? ( _When just myself was never much to begin with, dear brother_ , a snake, curled around his torso and suffocating Thor coos in Loki’s sibilant tones. He denies, but he doesn’t know if it’s a lie or not and surely his brother will notice.)

When the day breaks, he will be fine. Now he squirms ( _like a pretty, golden worm_ , a hiss and a bite, loving and vicious) and dreams, and wishes he never even knew Loki. If only his Father hadn’t taken...

There is someone laughing in his mind, mad and broken. He hopes it’s Loki. He fears it’s himself. Sometimes he sees Svartalfheim. There is a big hound, fur shining in the dark world, bent low over a carcass. It’s teeth make a snapping sound as they close and tear at rotting grey flesh. Wind blows and a strand of hair glides away like a funeral boat, darker than the gritty ground, dark and long.

_You’re like me now._

 Stars shine on.

 

Thor jerked awake, senses forged in thousands battlefields and quests instantly alert and focused. Jane breathed next to him, soft and pliant body wrapped around a sharp mind and energetic spirit. He exhaled and rose, moved on steady feet to the curtained window. The sky was clouded, he couldn’t spot a single star on the dark expanse. The bright lights of the city that never seemed to truly sleep offended him with their artificialness. It’s time to visit home, he decided and just like that, his restless mind was settled.

 

“It will not be for long, Jane. But much of my home has been ruined, and my Father has lost his wife and companion of millennia years. I need to make sure everything is in order.”

“Are you going to bury Loki’s body? Or, well, not bury, but do your rites for him?”

“I’m not certain. Maybe. If his body is still there. And if...” At his words Darcy, who was standing with them in the kitchen and making coffee, shrugged and said, “He’s your brother. Might’ve’been evil and stuff, but yeah. You don’t choose your family. You should do it for yourself, too. You’ll stop moping.” She grinned cheekily and took the delicious aroma of coffee away with her. Thor’s nose urged him to follow it like he would a prey. He bravely desisted.

“Darcy’s not very sensitive about it, but she does have a point. Funerals are as much for the living as for the dead. Down here,” Jane grinned, “even more so. You should do it, and don’t care what others think.”

“Being a prince does not mean I can do whatever I like, you know.”

“Oh, I know. But being you means exactly that.” She sent him a mock-serious look and they both laughed.

Life on Midgard, he thought, is good.

That evening Darcy brought in a bunch of delicate-looking red flowers. Jane groaned. Thor thought that he recognised them – Darcy had scolded him, when she had told him to “get his handsome arse on the ground and work”, for crushing them. Ian looked equally perplexed and resigned.

“I’ve always wanted to braid flowers in a guy’s hair, but none I know wear them long enough. Come on, Jane, admit that’s your kink too!” Darcy threw cheerily. “He looks like a princess, only with more... muscle.”

She made him sit on the floor and tugged at his braids. He hadn’t been this terrified since he, Sif, Loki and Warriors Three had offended the dwarves at their own court. He trusted Darcy, she was brave and honest, but also unusual and original.

Jane sighed, but joined Darcy on the couch behind Thor, so she must have been right – this was her “kenk”, whatever that meant. All-Speech was sometimes defeated when faced with Darcy and her words.

“What are those flowers?”

“Poppies. And don’t move your head, you’re ruining it!”

“Or maybe you just can’t make a braid to save your life,” said Jane smugly, who proved a true champion and had finished five braids to Darcy’s two.

“They’re flowers of death and mourning and stuff, so you better keep them on you until the funeral. You’ll be such a fashion hit in Asgard, you have no idea!” Darcy laughed a little as she finished. “Now, all done!” She proclaimed proudly, patting him on the head like a dog.

 

The Bifrost is as ever full of captive stars, multi-coloured and spinning. They glide after him as he rushes onwards, and for the first time Thor imagines they could find a way into Valhalla – reach it and those it jealously guards inside her gold domes.

But then he touches ground, and it is to Asgard’s familiar Observatory so Thor shakes off the melancholy. It is not a mindset with which one can face the All-Father and (perhaps) demand something of him.


End file.
